


chivalry fell on its sword

by insertcleveracejoke



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Just a Little Bit Different, M/M, Metatron tries to make Aziraphale kill Crowley, also I used both relationship tags, bc you dont know it and i couldnt make it clear in the fic, but it kept torturing me so I wrote it, but they are absolutely in a QPR, dont ask me how this came to be, i know this doesnt make any sense dont @ me, it doesnt work, title is from From Eden by Hozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:12:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insertcleveracejoke/pseuds/insertcleveracejoke
Summary: "Kill the demon", Metatron had said, nonchalant, as if the order was nothing.It should have been. Aziraphale's hold on his sword tightened."You kill him", he said raising his chin, "if you can finish both of us."Behind him, Crowley's breath just stuttered to a halt. The flames licked the blade of an ancient sword and Aziraphale tried to come to peace with the fact that he just outright defied the Voice of God. It was somewhat easier than he thought.





	chivalry fell on its sword

Aziraphale didn't know how he hadn't expected it to happen.

Six thousands of years walking on Earth, that was the reason- after some time, you forgot how it was Up There, how fiercely they hated the ones Down There not because of any personal reason but simply because they were told to. (Every demon had once been an angel. His fellow angels had forgotten that. Aziraphale, who had watched Crowley's become closer and closer to humanity for centuries, who had seen him spare lives the other demons never would, who knew about how his idea of being evil was gluing coins to the ground- well, Aziraphale remembered.) He had forgotten how cold hatred cold be. A sharp, freezing blade between a man's (or, at least, a man-shaped being's) eyes.

He couldn't quite remember how Metatron had forced Crowley to kneel, how Beelzebub had looked bored and uninterested. Aziraphale could only look at Crowley's wide yellow eyes and think, we had dinner together at Ritz not even a full week ago. He gave me the rest of his dessert. Most demons do their best to discorporate angels and the most he's ever done to me was staining one of my books with wine by accident. He didn't apologize, not really, but he bought me the same edition two days later. I didn't even know they still sold those. I don't think they did until he bought one.

"Kill the demon, Aziraphale", Metatron said, nonchalant, as if that order was nothing.

It should have been. His hold on the cold, cold sword tightened until his knuckles were white. Crowley didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say. He had gone through fear and ended up in the other side. It was the most calm he had felt in centuries. The demon knew it wasn't a good thing, but how do you tempt a friend into saving your life? And...

(And Crowley thought: If he tries, it's the both of us against them. We'll both die. If he kills me...)

(But that sword came from Up There.)

(If that blade touched him, it wouldn't be just discorporation. It would be permanent.)

It wasn't the worst way to die, on your knees in front of a friend. At least he wouldn't be dying alone. Maybe Aziraphale would survive if Up There thought he was on their side... And how ridiculous was that, that saying the angel was on Heaven's side became a lie at some point? They were on their side. How ridiculous was it, a demon and an angel working together...

Except in a few seconds, if Aziraphale did the sensible thing, there wouldn't be a "their side" anymore.

Crowley closed his eyes and wished for his sunglasses.

His next thought- which was surprising by itself, since the only next thought the demon had been expecting was something like "AAAAARGHH"- was that the temperature seemed to have gone up quite a bit in those few seconds. Crowley wondered if he had died and gone to Down There. Except, of course, Hell felt like being burned alive, and that heat felt like- felt like sitting by the hearth, a friend by your side and a glass of wine in your hand, your chest even warmer than the rest of you... And anyway, if he truly died, he wouldn't go back There. He'd just disappear...

Crowley opened his eyes again.

Aziraphale had turned his back on him, hand clenching a sword on fire that looked somehow different from the one he had been holding before and yet the same. Crowley could see the tension in his shoulders. He didn't need to see that to know that the angel would very much rather be anywhere but here, but it was a nice reminder that he wasn't the only one here quite literally putting his neck on the line. Metatron looked pale with rage. Beelzebub was analysing the grass with a barely concealed yawn.

"You kill him", Aziraphale said, raising his chin in a way that reminded Crowley of how he handled possible customers when they wandered too close to his favorite books, "if you can kill both of us."

Idiot, Crowley thought, somehow equally happily and with exasperation as his own breath stuttered to a halt. He's gonna get himself killed too. But flames licked an ancient sword and illuminated Aziraphale's face in a way that made it easier to remember that, in the Beginning, he had been a guardian. Crowley couldn't take his eyes off the usually soft face that now looked like something out of a religious painting, all orange and yellow and red highlighting someone who had gotten used to a comfortable life but hadn't forgotten that, deep down, the only thing that really mattered about a sword was that the pointy bit went into the squishy bits of someone else. He looked like a vengeful angel. And Crowley, who had seen more sunsets and sunrises than most beings in Earth, who had watched the flourishing of art and walked beside the best of mortal artists, who had seen the most charming roses, the most impressing temples, tried and failed to remember something more beautiful than the angel looked at that moment.

Metatron looked temporarily speechless from the audacity, and Aziraphale used it to turn around and offer Crowley a hand.

"Stand, my dear boy."

He found himself obeying without thinking about it. Aziraphale gave him a smile and turned back to the other angel and demon. Their hands were still together when Crowley did the same.

And in this point, at the end of the world with a very probable death waiting for him, the demon smiled.

 

Later they would turn around from the empty place where Lucifer, had it been just a little different, would have emerged. Crowley would drive them back home. The Jeep would spontaneously develop enough self-awareness that it would know without anything being said that, despite the fact that its driver wasn't paying any more attention to the road than the jeep itself paid to that blue thingy over everything, it would be in the best of its interests to not be in a car accident. They would go to the Ritz and get dinner. Crowley would let Aziraphale have the rest of his dessert.

And they would drink wine, and talk about what happened, and hold hands under the table because after all of that it felt so much better when they were touching each other and knew for sure that the other was there. Aziraphale would call Crowley "my dear" and be called "angel". And it would feel somehow different from before. And they would remember a cold blade, a sword on flames, and Crowley would never admit what he thought in those moments it almost touched his skin, but he wouldn't need to. 

Later they would find the bookshop and the Bentley and feel like everything was back in its place again. Later yet, they would decide to move to a cottage together, because Crowley had nightmares that felt less terrible when he woke up and Aziraphale was reading in their bed, always willing to make him some tea, and because sometimes the angel needed to be reminded that the bread knife in his hands wasn't a sword and hadn't killed anybody he cared for. And also because they simply liked to spend time together. Crowley's plants and Aziraphale's books shared space.

It would take time until the demon would be able to wake up more than a few times without screaming and until the angel didn't second-guess his own ability to make himself a snack without having entirely too human and fragile reactions. But time was all they had, and it would be okay.

 

But before that, at the end of the world, an angel and a demon stood together and held hands.


End file.
